2022-04-14 09:36:05
The goal was to deliver cargo from the port of Qingdao (China) to Derbent, the Republic of Dagestan (Russia)
Cargo – compressor for a winery and cognac factory disassembled , 2 Pcs (Dimensions 5450×2600×3700 mm / gross weight 14700 kg; 2580×2480×1400 mm / gross weight 1550 kg)
Heat exchangers for a wine and cognac factory (dimensions 10700×2460×2550 mm / gross weight 19000 kg, 10700×2460×2550 mm / gross weight 19000 kg, 7100×3000×3150 mm / gross weight 8000 kg, 7100×3 000×3150 mm / gross weight 8000 kg)
Method of transportation – sea freight to the port of Nakhodka, then transportation by trucks to the destination.
Several options were considered for transporting oversized and heavy cargo from China to the south of Russia. The shorter and, at first glance, profitable delivery of cargo by sea to a port in the south of Russia with further truck transportation to the destination in Flat Rack containers, according to the calculations carried out, turned out to be less profitable than multimodal delivery via the port of the Russian Far East.
When the ports in the Far East were overloaded, it was first necessary to negotiate with the terminal about accepting the cargo, and only then charter the ship. The planned port of loading in China has also changed several times due to epidemiological restrictions related to COVID-19 occurring in certain Chinese ports depending on the level of infection. As a result, Qingdao was chosen as the departure port, and Nakhodka as the destination port. The cargo was loaded on New Year's Eve 2021-2022, from December 30 to December 31, 2021. The ship arrived at the port of Nakhodka on January 7-8, 2022 and entered Russian territorial waters.
Since then, it stood at the port roadstead until mid-February 2022. The reason was the unpredictable excess overload of the port of Nakhodka (a similar situation arose in Vladivostok). More than thirty ships were forced to wait for unloading at the port roads for more than a month (while even a week can be time-consuming and not profitable for the ship owner or charterer), ship owners and forwarders whose vehicles were waiting for unloading were forced to pay excess demurrage, incurring losses.
In order to reduce costs, low-loader trawls, for which the appropriate special permits were obtained, were loaded with cargo from other ships (other cargo was also difficult to find, due to the fact that many ships were in the roadstead and were not unloaded) for transportation to Central Russia, after which they were returned to the port of unloading. Meanwhile, the heat exchangers and compressor were unloaded from the ship and moved to the rear areas of the port.
The wooden packaging of some cargo items that had been on the ship at sea for quite a long time had dried out in some places, and therefore work had to be carried out to restore and stabilize it. In addition, during the survey carried out to fix that improvements, discrepancies in the heights of some positions were identified. The actual height of some of the cargo items was significantly higher than that stated by the shipper in the documents. As a result, these issues were resolved during the work.
The situation was complicated by the rush, the difficulty in urgently attracting specialized organizations, and the calculation of some unplanned expenses in foreign currency, which at that time was extremely volatile, since all this work was carried out immediately after the outbreak of hostilities in Ukraine.
The work was successfully completed, and the cargo was sent to its destination. All items were delivered to their destination. The distance for road transport was over 10 thousand km, and the cargo was delivered about a month later than planned due to the aforementioned long delay of the vessel at the port of arrival. However, the transit time for the delivery of this cargo along this route was less than that planned by sea to a port in southern Russia with subsequent delivery by trucks, and the total cost of all expenses also turned out to be less than planned for the above-mentioned route by about a third.